windows-compatibility

Context

Squad runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Several bugs have been traced to platform-specific assumptions: ISO timestamps with colons (illegal on Windows), git -C with Windows paths (unreliable), forward-slash paths in Node.js on Windows.

Patterns

Filenames & Timestamps

• Never use colons in filenames: ISO 8601 format 2026-03-15T05:30:00Z is illegal on Windows
• Use safeTimestamp() utility: Replaces colons with hyphens → 2026-03-15T05-30-00Z
• Centralize formatting: Don't inline .toISOString().replace(/:/g, '-') — use the utility

Git Commands

• Never use git -C {path}: Unreliable with Windows paths (backslashes, spaces, drive letters)
• Always cd first: Change directory, then run git commands
• Check for changes before commit: git diff --cached --quiet (exit 0 = no changes)

Commit Messages

• Never embed newlines in -m flag: Backtick-n (\n) fails silently in PowerShell
• Use temp file + -F flag: Write message to file, commit with git commit -F $msgFile

Paths

• Never assume CWD is repo root: Always use TEAM ROOT from spawn prompt or run git rev-parse --show-toplevel
• Use path.join() or path.resolve(): Don't manually concatenate with / or \

Path Comparison (Case Sensitivity)

• Never use case-sensitive startsWith or === for path comparison on Windows or macOS: These filesystems are case-insensitive — C:\Users\ and c:\users\ refer to the same location
• Use platform-aware comparison: Check process.platform === 'win32' || process.platform === 'darwin' and lowercase both sides before comparing
• Pattern:

  const CASE_INSENSITIVE = process.platform === 'win32' || process.platform === 'darwin';
  
  function pathStartsWith(fullPath: string, prefix: string): boolean {
    if (CASE_INSENSITIVE) {
      return fullPath.toLowerCase().startsWith(prefix.toLowerCase());
    }
    return fullPath.startsWith(prefix);
  }
  

• Where it matters: Security checks (path traversal prevention), rootDir confinement, any path-contains-path validation
• Linux is case-sensitive: Do NOT lowercase on Linux — /Home/ and /home/ are different directories